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Resources and Lesson Plans

Jump to: K-12 lesson plans | General history | Greensboro sit-ins | Desegregation | May, 1969 | November 3, 1979

Please note that this resource list was created in 2009-2011 and many links may be out of date.

K-12 resources and lesson plans

Lesson plans incorporating the Civil Rights Greensboro website are available for various grades and subjects. These were created under the supervision of Dr. Sandra Andrews, Assistant Professor of Library and Information Studies at UNCG, by graduate students in the LIS 654 course, School Library Media Specialist and the Curriculum.

General history

  • Atlanta in the Civil Rights Movement. http://www.atlantahighered.org/civilrights/
    As home to many key leaders and organizations of the civil rights movement – and as a site for many of the movement’s grassroots activities – Atlanta played a critical role in this period of American history.
  • Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. (Find this in a library)
    The 'sit-ins' at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro launched the passive resistance phase of the civil rights revolution. This book tells the story of what happened in Greensboro; it also tells the story in microcosm of America's effort to come to grips with our most abiding national dilemma—racism.
  • Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive. http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/index.html
    The Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive is an Internet-accessible, fully searchable database of digitized versions of rare and unique library and archival resources on race relations in Mississippi.
  • Digital Library of Georgia. "Civil Rights Digital Library." http://crdl.usg.edu/
    The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.
  • Greensboro VOICES: Voicing Observations in Civil Rights and Equality Struggles. http://library.uncg.edu/depts/archives/civrights/
    Greensboro VOICES provides access to a collection of 125 oral interviews housed in the Greensboro Public Library and in the University Archives of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The recordings, collected over the past thirty years, provide a rich resource for historical research concerning the Civil Rights Movement in the Greensboro area.
  • Hairston, Otis L., Jr. Greensboro, North Carolina. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishers, 2003. (Find this in a library)
    The historic city of Greensboro, North Carolina, experienced national attention on February 1, 1960 when four A&T College students sat down at the Woolworth lunch counter, thus birthing the civil rights "sit-in movements." However, African Americans helped shape the city for many decades prior to that event. Palmer Memorial Institute, the country's first African-American finishing school, is located here, as is Bennett College, one of two historically black colleges for women in the United States. Alumni of Greensboro schools include Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, the late astronaut Ron McNair, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Justice Henry Frye, and former Harlem Globetrotter Freddie "Curly" Neal. — Arcadia Publishing
  • Jesse Jackson: genesis of a journey. Directed by Jerome C. Moore. Research Triangle Park, N.C. : University of North Carolina Center for Public Television, 1991. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    Director/videographer/editor, Jerome C. Moore ; executive in charge of production, Bob Royster ; executive producer, Richard W. Hatch ; associate producers, Jane Madden, Jerome C. Moore ; written and produced by Mike Gray. Mike Gray. VHS format. Rev. Jesse Jackson first assumed a leadership role in the black community through his involvement in the civil rights movement in Greensboro, NC in 1963. The story of Jackson's emergence as a religious and civil rights leader during this period is told through candid interviews, rare still photographs and dramatic film footage. Adults. — UNCG/Jackson Library Catalog
  • Library of Congress. "African American Odyssey." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html
    The exhibition The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, showcases the incomparable African American collections of the Library of Congress. Displaying more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings, this is the largest black history exhibit ever held at the Library, and the first exhibition of any kind to feature presentations in all three of the Library's buildings. — Website introduuction
  • Library of Congress. "Voices of Civil Rights." http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civilrights/
    The exhibition Voices of Civil Rights documents events during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This exhibition draws from the thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and photographs collected by the "Voices of Civil Rights" project, a collaborative effort of AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress, and marks the arrival of these materials in the Library's collection. — Website introduuction
  • National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/
    The National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., chronicles key episodes of the American civil rights movement and the legacy of this movement to inspire participation in civil and human rights efforts globally, through our collections, exhibitions, and educational programs.
  • Sieber, H.A. Holy Ground: Significant Events in the Civil Rights-Related History of the African-American Communities of Guilford County, North Carolina, 1771-1995. Greensboro, NC: Tudor Publishers, Inc., 1995. (Find this in a library)
  • Through Survivors' Eyes: From the Sixties to the Greensboro Massacre. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003. (Find this in a library)
    In first-person accounts, Through Survivor's Eyes tells the story of six remarkable people who set out to change the world. The survivors came of age as the "protest generation," joining the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. They marched for civil rights, against war, for textile and healthcare workers, and for black power and women's liberation. As the mass mobilizations waned in the mid-1970s, they searched for a way to continue their activism, studied Marxism, and became communists." "Through Survivors' Eyesis the story of people who abandoned conventional lives to become civil rights activists and then revolutionaries. It is about blacks and whites who united against Klan/Nazi terror, and then had to overcome unbearable hardship, and persist in seeking justice. It is also a story of one divided southern community, from the protests of black college students of the late 1960s to the convening this January of a Truth and Community Reconciliation Project (on the South African model) intended to reassess the Greensboro Massacre.—Book Jacket.
  • USM Civil Rights Documentation Project. http://www.usm.edu/crdp/index.html
    A bibliography of oral history interviews on the civil rights movement in Mississippi.

Greensboro sit-ins

  • Adams-Ender, Clara. “Oral history interview with Clara Adams-Ender.”  Oral History Collection of the Women Veterans Historical Project at the Walter Clinton Jackson Library, University Archives and Manuscripts, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (Read online)
    Interviewed by Hermann J. Trojanowski on September 10, 2005. Forms part of: Oral History Collection of the Women Veterans Historical Project at the Walter Clinton Jackson Library, University Archives and Manuscripts; online access to the Project is available at http://library.uncg.edu/depts/archives/veterans/. Interview transcript also available in digital format athttp://library.uncg.edu/depts/archives/veterans/AdamsEnderTrans.html. Primarily documents Brig. Gen. Clara L. Adams-Ender's background; her service with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps from 1961 to 1993; and her marriage to Heinz Ender. She also comments on management and leadership issues related to the Army Nurse Corps. Adams-Ender describes growing up on a tobacco farm in N.C. in the 1940s and 1950s; missing school to work on the farm; having a large family; the importance of education; and her father's insistence that she attend nursing school. She also discusses her involvement in the sit-ins at the F.W. Woolworth in Greensboro on 1 February 1960.
  • Esse quam videri: To be rather than to seem. Produced by Emily Edwards. Greensboro NC; The University of North Carolina at Greensboro: 1991. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    Still photographs provided by the Greensboro news and record, The Alumni Affairs Office, University Archives, UNC-G. Originally presented as an "All campus read" activity, spring 1990.Voices of Marilyn Lott, Eugenia Seaman Marks, Chancellor Gordon Blackwell. Interviewees, Ann Dearsley-Vernon, Joanne Drane, Claudette Burroughs-White. An account of the participation of four UNC-G (formerly the Woman's College) students at the 1960 sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The events are detailed through interviews with three former students, voiceovers, WFMY-TV file footage, still photographs, and reenactments of the events. — UNCG/Jackson Library Catalog
  • February One. Produced by Rebecca Cerese. Durham, NC: Video Dialog, Inc., 2003. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    Four students from A&T University, Jibreel Khazan (formerly Ezell Blair, Jr.), Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Joseph McNeil staged a sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth five and dime store and requested to be served lunch. Based largely on firsthand accounts and rare archival footage, February One documents that sit-in that not only challenged public accommodation customs and laws in North Carolina, but served as a blueprint for the wave of non-violent civil rights protests that swept across the South and the nation throughout the 1960's.
  • Gaillard, Frye. The Greensboro Four: Civil Rights Pioneers: A Profile. Charlotte, NC: Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2001. (Find this in a library)
    On a February day in 1960, four black teenagers—all of them freshmen at North Carolina A&T University—walked from their campus to the Woolworth’s store in downtown Greensboro, and took their seats at the segregated lunch counter. They didn’t know what would happen. They were simply determined to draw their own line, to declare on a frigid winter afternoon that racial segregation was wrong. But with their simple act of defiance, the Greensboro Four triggered a movement that quickly spread through the South. – Main Street Rag
  • Greensboro News & Record. "Greensboro Sit-ins: Launch of a Civil Rights Movement."http://www.sitins.com
    Produced by Greensboro's daily newspaper, this site features biographies, a photo gallery, and audio clips along with original newspaper articles from the time of the sit-ins.
  • Hansberry, Lorraine. The Movement: Documentary of Struggle for Equality. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964. (Find this in a library)
  • International Civil Rights Center & Museum. http://www.sitinmovement.org/
    The ICRCM seeks to ensue that the world never forgets the courage displayed by four young North Carolina A & T State University students, on February 1, 1960, and the hundreds and thousands of college and community youth in Greensboro, in the South and around the country who joined them in the days and weeks that followed which led to the desegregation of the Woolworth lunch counter and ultimately to the smashing of the despicable segregation system in the southern United States.  – ICRCM Website
  • Stuber, Robert W. “The Negro and the struggle for equal opportunity in Greensboro, May-July, 1963.” MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1970.
  • Weatherford, Carole Boston.  Freedom on the Menu: the Greensboro Sit-ins.  New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, 2005. (Find this in a library)
    There were signs all throughout town telling eight-year-old Connie where she could and could not go. But when Connie sees four young men take a stand for equal rights at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, she realizes that things may soon change. This event sparks a movement throughout her town and region. And while Connie is too young to march or give a speech, she helps her brother and sister make signs for the cause. Changes are coming to Connie’s town, but Connie just wants to sit at the lunch counter and eat a banana split like everyone else. — Penguin Books
  • Wikipedia. s.v. "Greensboro sit-ins." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Sit-Ins
  • Wolff, Miles. Lunch at the Five & Ten. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1990. (Find this in a library)
    A detailed account of the sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which ignited the civil rights movement in the United States.

Desegregation in Greensboro

  • Bagwell, William. School Desegregation in the Carolinas: Two Case Studies. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. (Find this in a library)
    This study was designed to discover and evaluate in the community setting the intergroup relations principles or factors involved in the social change connected with school desegregation. Specifically, an effort has been made to validate in the actual ongoing process of school desegregation a number of selected theoretical or academic principles or factors which social scientists have claimed to be relevant to this social change. To do this, case studies were made of the overall school desegregation situation in two southern communities to determine whether the specific principles or factors existed, how important each was, and what their relationships were to each other and to the overall pattern of community interaction over school desegregation. The two communities were Greensboro, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina. These two communities are demographically similar in many ways, such as racial population ratio, economic and religious life, and geographic location. The selection of these two communities was made somewhat on the premise that the social scene in each would be found to reflect the strongly contrasting racial and social climates in the two States. The data for this study included the general background and setting of the two communities, the historical experience of school desegregation in each, and the nature of and relationship to each other and to the overall pattern of community interaction involved in the desegregation process. — ERIC Abstract
  • Bethea, Trina Caviness. "Segregation, desegregation, resegregation : Dudley High School as a case in point." EdD thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005.
  • Bradley, Josephine Ophelia Boyd. "Wearing My Name: School Desegregation, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1954-1958." PhD diss., Emory University, 1995.
    This dissertation recounts the author's personal experience of desegregating public schools in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1957-1958.
  • Davis, Sally Edwina W. "Behind the lines in Greensboro."  MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1986.
  • Jacoway, Elizabeth, and David R. Colburn, eds. Southern Businessmen and Desegregation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982. (Find this in a library)
  • Peck, Jane Cary, School desegregation in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1954-1971 : a case study in purposive social change. PhD thesis, Boston University, 1974.
  • Robinson, Anna. School Desegregation in Greensboro, 1954-1971. Greensboro, NC: Human Relations Commission, 1971.(Find this in a library)

May 1969 disturbances

  • Black Citizens Concerned With Police Brutality. Trouble in Greensboro Continued: Police Brutality. Greenboro, NC: Black Citizens Concerned With Police Brutality, 1972. (Find this in a library)
  • Gottschall, Andrew W. Something's Got to Give: A Report on Twelve Attitudes Which Disable the Community, the Mythology of Disorderly Social Control. Greensboro, NC: Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, 1970. (Find this in a library)
  • Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. One Community: Some Background on Race Relations-Related Activities of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. Greensboro, NC: The Chamber, 1970. (Find this in a library)
  • North Carolina State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Trouble in Greensboro: A Report of an Open Meeting Concerning the Disturbances at Dudley High School and North Carolina A&T State University. Washington, DC: North Carolina Advisory Committee, 1970. (Find this in a library)

November 3, 1979 incident

  • Bermanzohn, Paul C., and Sally Avery Bermanzohn. The True Story of the Greensboro Massacre. New York, NY: C. Cauce, 1980. (Find this in a library) 
  • Bermanzohn, Sally A. Survivors of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre: A Study of the Long Term Impact of Protest Movements on the Political Socialization of Radical Activists. PhD thesis, City University of New York, 1994.
  • Black White Perceptions: Race Relations in Greensboro : A Report. Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 1981. (Find this in a library)
  • democracynow.org. "Remembering the 1979 Greensboro Massacre: 25 Years Later Survivors Form Country’s First Truth and Reconciliation Commission." http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/18/remembering_the_1979_greensboro_massacre_25
    This 2004 episode of the public affairs program Democracy Now contains video of the November 3, 1979 shootings as well as interviews with Sally Bermanzohn and Rev. Nelson Johnson.
  • 88 Seconds in Greensboro. Directed by William Cran. Boston: WGBH-TV, 1983. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    “It could be called a dark Southern tale: right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists in a gun battle in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 88 seconds, five are left dead." This episode of the PBS series Frontline covers the November 3, 1979, shootings and the subsequent trials.
  • Greensboro: Clash with the Ku Klux Klan. Produced by MichaelRogers. New York: A&E Home Video, 2000. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    The story of one of the most shocking crimes in modern American history—the murders of five members of the Communist Workers' Party by Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis in 1979. The massacre stunned the town of Greensboro, North Carolina, which had been called "the most livable city in America. — A&E Website
  • Greensboro: Closer to the Truth. Directed by Adam Zucker. New York: Longnook Pictures, 2007. DVD. (Find this in a library)
    Chronicles 1979's Greensboro Massacre, in which the Ku Klux Klan murdered five members of the Communist Workers Party. Despite extensive television footage, no one was ever convicted. The film reconnects 25 years later with the players in this tragedy - widowed and wounded survivors, along with their attackers - and chronicles how their lives have evolved in the long aftermath of the killings. All converge when the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission ever held in the United States is convened in Greensboro from 2004-2006 to investigate the Massacre.  Produced, directed & edited by Adam Zucker ; director of photography, Scott Anger; music by Sheldon Mirowitz.
  • Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. http://www.greensborotrc.org/
    The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an independent, democratically selected body seeking truth and healing transformation for Greensboro, N.C., a city left divided and weakened by the events of Nov. 3, 1979.
  • The Greensboro Massacre. Produced by Noah Morowitz and Bill Brummel Productions, Inc. [New York]: The History Channel, 2000. DVD. (Find this in a library)
    A documentary about the 1979 murders of the Communist Workers Party Five in Greensboro, North Carolina during an anti-Klan march. Klansmen and American Nazis arrived and opened fire on the unarmed activists, presumably killing five and wounding eleven. Two trials resulted in acquittals, and the city of Greensboro remains divided to this day. Includes commentary from local police, Klan members and Communist Workers Party survivors.  Originally broadcast as an episode of the series Lawbreakers on the History Channel on October 14, 2000.  According to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences this  video award entry was submitted in the category "Outstanding investigative journalism" for the 22nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards.  Color with black 7 white sequences.   
  • Greensboro Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Public hearing DVD collection. Greensboro, NC: Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2006. DVD. (Find this in a library)
    The supplement contains information about the Commission, its history, mission and mandate, along with Commission biographies."For making this series possible, special thanks to Michael Moore and the N.C. A&T State University Television Studio, WXII-12, WFMY News 2, WGHP-TV Fox 8, and the International Center for Transitional Justice"—container.On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Ku Klux Klan and Nazi members killed five community and labor organizers and wounded ten others at a legally scheduled march and rally organized by the Communist Workers Party.  The impact of these events, their causes, and their aftermath continue to reverberate throughout Greensboro. This disc presents a summary of the three public hearings of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission which took place in 2005 in Greensboro, North Carolina.  It includes segments of all 54 speakers statements to the Commission from all three hearings, representing different perspectives on the context, causes, sequence and consequence of the events of November 3, 1979. — UNCG/Jackson Library Catalog
  • The Guns of November 3rd Nov. 3, 1979. Directed by Jim Walters. S.l.: Jim Walters, 1999. Videocassette. (Find this in a library)
    Film footage of the Nov. 3rd, 1979 Klan/Nazi attack on the Greensboro anti-Klan demonstrators. United States Commission on Civil Rights.
  • Institute for Southern Studies. The Third of November. Durham, NC: Institute for Southern Studies, 1981. (Find this in a library)
    Examines the events surrounding the Greensboro Massacre, the slaying of five members of the Communist Workers Party, presumably by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The report details why the Communist Workers Party was in Greensboro, the shooting itself and reactions from all involved. Was there a conspiracy? Several Ku Klux Klan members went to trial for the killings of the members from the Communist Workers Party.  Narrated by Paul Winfield.  This is a VHS videocassette release of an episode of the television program, City Confidential. 
  • Red tide rising in the Carolinas.  Alexandria, Va.: Western Goals, 1980. (Find this in a library)
  • Waller, Signe. Love and Revolution: A Political Memoir: People's History of the Greensboro Massacre, Its Setting and Aftermath. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002. (Find this in a library)
    “Waller's book, Love and Revolution: A Political Memoir, recently published by Rowman & Littlefield, is the story of her life up to and after the Greensboro Massacre, with that tragic day as the book's dark center.” — The Carolinian
  • Wheaton, Elizabeth. Codename GREENKIL: the 1979 Greensboro killings. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987. (Find this in a library)
    When four courageous black teens sat down at a lunch counter in the segregated South of 1960, the reverberations were felt both far beyond and close to home. This insightful story offers a child's-eye view of this seminal event in the American Civil Rights Movement. Connie is used to the signs and customs that have let her drink only from certain water fountains and which bar her from local pools and some stores, but still . . . she'd love to sit at the lunch counter, just like she's seen other girls do. Showing how an ordinary family becomes involved in the great and personal cause of their times, it's a tale that invites everyone to celebrate our country's everyday heroes, of all ages.